Reflections
Armstrong, Robert
REFLECTIONS Sidney Lens Hold That Line Time was when working men and women, liberals, and radicals of all persuasions, held one rule sacred and inviolable: Never cross a picket line. It wasn't a...
...Ever...
...And the rest of us—liberals, radicals-have become ever so careful, too, weighing the issues, choosing which causes we will support and which we will ignore or undermine, deciding "objectively," as if there were an impartial measure to determine whether, in any particular instance, the rich or the poor are "in the right...
...It still is...
...At that point, however, the employer fired more than 100 of our most active recruits, leaving us no choice but to strike...
...She walked through the picket line and taped the broadcast...
...It didn't work out that way...
...Observing the rule never to cross a labor picket line is, it seems to me, as important now as it was a couple of generations ago—a minimal show of solidarity with those who are struggling to achieve a better life or a better world...
...The old rule seems to have lost much of its force...
...I don't know," he replied...
...military involvement in Vietnam, I once arranged a television appearance for a young woman, a dedicated peace activist...
...But it seems to me that in recent years I have met many more who wouldn't think twice about crossing a union picket line...
...From my own years in the labor movement, I can recall a dozen occasions when I had to plead with union leaders to respect our picket lines...
...Many workers now earn middle-class or even upper-class incomes...
...There were strong traditions of working-class solidarity among many of the newcomers—particularly the Jews, Germans, and Irish...
...Some unions have been intimidated by the threat of civil lawsuit, or fear criminal prosecution for observing a picket line...
...Honoring a picket line was the least we could do...
...We or our parents or our grandparents had taken part in the needle-trade strikes, the steel and coal battles, the hard-rock mine struggles, the sit-down strikes in the auto and rubber industries, the bitter confrontations with police or national guardsmen in Minneapolis, Toledo, San Francisco...
...I argued that the tactics the Government was using against us in the peace movement—arrests, injunctions, official and unofficial violence—had been used for generations against the labor movement...
...The waves of European immigrants also helped promote and protect the sanctity of the picket line...
...Some unions fail to respect a picket line because they are led by business unionists who have no concept of working-class solidarity...
...She cited a recent incident: In New York City, a group of construction workers—hard hats-had assaulted antiwar demonstrators...
...after respecting our picket lines for three-and-a-half hours, the Teamsters called to say they would have to go through...
...As unions grow more prudent and liberals more choosy, the sanctity of the picket line vanishes The vanishing sanctity of the picket line is as valid an indicator as any of our political disarray and decay...
...It made no difference which union was on strike, or what it was demanding...
...Too bad," I said to my young friend...
...When a $ 15-an-hour construction worker or a $75,000-a-year airline pilot goes on strike, a $4-an-hour clerk is more likely to be jealous than sympathetic...
...Today, most unions are prudent: stingy with their treasuries, protective of their investments, and obsessed with their officials' job security...
...In the late 1940s, I headed a drive by two national unions to organize a Chicago retail chain that included ten large stores...
...It was all in vain...
...Once we learned that rule, we stayed with it...
...Button...
...Like hell I'll miss this show," shcsaid...
...The chain remains unorganized to this day, and tens of thousands of other retail workers who would have benefited from our struggle remain outside the ranks of union labor...
...I tried to instill in her a sense of solidarity, a feeling for fellow human beings who were also underdogs, who were also attempting to right societal wrongs...
...It isn't easy to work up much comradely fervor for Jackie Presser of the Teamsters, who earns more than half a million dollars a year and is an admitted informer for the FBI...
...Both the sense of solidarity and the moral vision have fallen on hard times lately...
...In an earlier era, union officers would have taken their chances...
...our observance must be uniform, not selective...
...Whether we admire a particular union or a particular strike is beside the point...
...It wasn't a precept that required discussion or debate...
...It was different in the 1920s and 1930s, the years of economic stagnation and open-shop repression, when we were all in the same leaky boat...
...In the western United States, Phelps Dodge copper miners on strike for many months receive regular pledges of support and occasional cash contributions from other unions...
...Children brought up in such homes learned early in life to stay on this side of the picket line...
...The workers responded enthusiastically, and soon we were ready to file an application with the National Labor Relations Board for a union certification election...
...But she refused to leave with me...
...That's how it was with many millions of us...
...And even if we or our families were not directly involved, we had heard and read about pickets being beaten, jailed, sometimes killed...
...Those union bastards are our enemies...
...I'm sure many other young people, in and out of the peace movement, would not have followed her example...
...to do anything else might mean costly lawsuits or even imprisonment of labor leaders...
...It isn't easy to make common cause with striking airline pilots who didn't hesitate to cross the picket lines of flight attendants and machinists when they were out on strike...
...she asked...
...It's a matter of principle, of social philosophy...
...And I started to walk away...
...My father was a member of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers...
...We'll have a functioning movement when the old rule is in full force again: Never cross a picket line...
...Not long ago, I asked a wealthy friend why he continues to respect picket lines that are clearly at odds with his class interests...
...station, we encountered a picket line of striking technicians...
...Prosperity is one factor, I suppose...
...Good people didn't cross picket lines...
...But union members across the country continue to handle products made from Phelps Dodge's scab copper...
...This is one TV show we'll have to miss...
...In the 1930s, contract or no contract, this union would have honored the picket line...
...Such support was not always forthcoming—we lost three or four strikes because other unions wouldn't back us—and when it was, personal friendship or union politics often played a greater role than working-class solidarity...
...Our politics might have changed, or we might have drifted away from activism, but the picket line remained sacrosanct...
...the cause is just and deserves our support...
...Honoring a picket line was a matter of principle, and the principle was absolute and immutable...
...What mattered most, however, was a sense of solidarity within the house of labor itself and a moral vision that friends and sympathizers could readily embrace...
...Why should I care about them...
...During the recent strike of Greyhound bus drivers, one major national union contributed $50,000 to the drivers' strike fund but directed its members to cross the picket line and service the buses in accord with their contract...
...Without the Teamsters' support, our strike soon collapsed...
...I guess it's because I was brought up that way...
...And the rule should allow no exceptions...
...At the entrance to the Sidney Lens, The Progressive's Senior Editor, is the author of "Strikemakers & Strikebreakers," published last fall by Lodestar/E.P...
...During the years of protest against U.S...
...The Taft-Hartley Act's ban on "secondary boycotts" has been particularly effective...
...The two national unions were conservative bastions of the American Federation of Labor with .close ties to the Teamsters, so we were confident we could shut down the stores and compel management to rehire the dismissed union activists...
Vol. 50 • January 1986 • No. 1
